Picking up phone in stationary traffic jam - temporary lights.

[Man in the middle]

Whatever "mitigating circumstances" you put forward, the court must impose six points as that is what the statute demands.

 

There is one exception to this:

if the court finds there are "Special Reasons Not to Endorse" then they may record a conviction but impose no points.

 

In the circumstances you describe the chance of success with this lies somewhere between nought and zero, but it will cost you nothing so worth a try. Quite how you would make such an argument is difficult to imagine; you were driving and you did use a hand held phone. It's not even as if you were "sort of parked but not quite." You were in a queue waiting for traffic lights to change.

 

I don't know where you got the £200 from. That is the amount payable when a fixed penalty is offered and for some reason you were not offered one.

 

As above, the guidelines suggest a fine of half a week's net income (reduced by a third for a guilty plea).

You will also pay a surcharge (known commonly as a "Victim Surcharge") of 40% of the fine and around £90 prosecution costs. So if you take home £600 pw it will cost you £200 fine, £80 surcharge and £90 costs = £370. The fine is capped at £1,000, so whatever your income, the maximum you will pay by way of a fine is £667.

 

One avenue worth exploring is the fixed penalty (or lack of it). From your description there are no aggravating circumstances and it is hard to understand why you were not offered one unless it is this:

 

Quote

Upon receiving an email from Sussex Police later that evening I requested any evidence be forwarded to myself so I can make a judgement on what to do next.

 

Whilst it would be unusual, the police may have assumed that you were going to challenge the charge and so did not bother to offer you a FP. This is only a guess and if you want to minimise the financial penalty (though it will not effect the points) you need to find out why no FP was offered.

 

If you agree to the matter being dealt with under the "Single Justice" procedure you cannot attend your hearing so you must ask, as part of your response to the SJPN, if the court would consider sentencing you at the FP level. The SIngle Justice hearing your case would probably be unlikely to do this as he or she will have no information from the prosecutor regarding the lack of a FP offer (prosecutors do not attend SJ hearings either). To be sure of having this matter addressed you would have to ask for a hearing in the normal Magistrates' Court where you can attend and ask the prosecutor why no FP was offered. 

 

Regarding your request at the roadside to see some leniency exercised, unless they decide to make no report, individual officers do not decide what action will be taken. They simply file a report and the "back office" makes that decision.

Edited May 15, 2023 by dx100uk
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[Man in the middle]

25 minutes ago, Dom69 said:

...but had been advised by a solicitor to write to Sussex Safer Roads immediately requesting disclosure of all evidence involved in the case within 28 days upon which I could then make a decision on what path to take.

 

Then you were badly advised, I'm afraid.

 

You are not entitled to any evidence before deciding whether or not to accept a fixed penalty and the solicitor should have known that. The idea of a fixed penalty offer is that you accept the allegation as it stands and are willing to dispose of the matter without it going to court.

 

The police are under no obligation to provide you with anything until they begin court proceedings and then you are only entitled to the "Initial Details of the Prosecution Case" (IDPC). This, roughly speaking is the evidence the police intend to rely on to convict you, to enable you to enter an informed plea. You are not entitled to see "all evidence involved with the case" unless the court agrees to anything over and above the IDPC before your trial.

 

This is something else the solicitor should have known I hope you didn't pay him or her any money. If you did I would seek a refund.

 

My advice would be to simply plead guilty in response to the SJPN. You can mention the precise circumstances and request some leniency.

 

A kindly Single Justice may reduce the fine a little, especially as you seem to have been badly misled. You might even be lucky and be sentenced at the fixed penalty level, though I would be surprised. But six points is the inevitable outcome unless something spectacularly unexpected happens.

[Man in the middle]

I'm not so sure that it makes any difference.

 

Since the OP was stopped at the time of the offence he knew that enforcement was very likely. He either spoke to a solicitor between being stopped and receiving the FP offer or he spoke to one after receiving it. I'm inclined to think it was after he received it, as his description (of his interaction with the solicitor) was this:

 

"...I had been advised by a solicitor to write to Sussex Safer Roads immediately requesting disclosure of all evidence involved in the case within 28 days upon which I could then make a decision on what path to take."

 

This seems to indicate to me that he had been advised to ask for evidence in order to decide whether to accept the FP or not and the "within 28 days" seems to suggest that the solicitor was (at least) aware that the FP must be taken up within that period.  

 

In either event, to advise him to seek evidence, whether he had already received a FP offer or not, was clearly very poor advice. Any half decent solicitor advising on motoring matters should know that the police have no obligation to provide evidence at that stage and if they don't know they should not offer advice at all. Unless he intended to plead Not Guilty (which would have been even poorer advice on the face of it) allowing the FP to lapse has almost certainly cost him a tidy sum. Of course the OP has not said whether he paid for this poor advice or whether anything else accompanied it (e.g. "...and if you don't get the evidence you will have to decide whether to accept the FP or not without it.") 

Edited May 16, 2023 by Man in the middle

[Man in the middle]

That's a very good result! Did you pay prosecution costs as well (usually around £90)? If not, it was better than the fixed penalty(£200). Thanks for letting us know.